


Take your place, take your time

by letmetellyousomething



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Gen, Not Beta Read, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 20:39:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1124146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letmetellyousomething/pseuds/letmetellyousomething
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The non-existent reflection in grandpa’s glasses looked reproachful.</p><p>“Yes I’ll let her into the house!!!” Jade thought defiantly.<br/>“No I won’t aim at her with my rifle the whole time, that’s rude! Yes I know she's a dangerous troll and an intruder!! </p><p>Are you even considering what you’re saying? That’s preposterous, my face is flushed because you want the fireplace ablaze at all times!!! I’ll be just fine with Becquerel and my dead-on shooting reflexes!”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take your place, take your time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inklesspen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inklesspen/gifts).



Jade shielded her eyes from the sun to watch the shuttle appear in hover flight over the tree tops. Compulsively she checked the logo, but no- it was neither the green Skaia net logo that had once been such a familiar sight, nor the aggressive Red of Crocker cop. She controlled her steps as she made her way down the stair-case of her tower.

There was no need to rush. Grandpa had subscribed to a Skaia net supply flight every solar unit for the first 18 human years of her life, which probably had been his furthest reaching provision for the future aside from his funds. She had enjoyed grumbling about it to his stuffed corpse in her rebellious phase.

Now that Jade scheduled them herself she had decided to only order a flight every late spring or so, when the stratospheric weather was good. This time she expected necessities like spare parts for her solar panels, metal for both of her and Jake's robotic projects, oil skin and dietary supplements, but also some fun treats like magnetic bullets, packages from her friends and the DVD set of "Furrynauts".

\---

When she had been younger the crew of the Skaia net flight had often stayed the night. She understood that it had been a way of them to check up on her and Jake, a thought which made her smile despite herself. She also remembered the liveliness of having so many people over, running around and acting as a host, barbecuing outside, the chattering voices, and the long discussions into the night.

The onboard scientist had given her heaps of school course packs, which had been a good way to estimate how far she was expected to be in her education. She started discussions about biology, nuclear physics and astronomy, while Jake recounted all of his adventures and all the movies he had seen.

"If it can be warped then it can be- and the dark energy increases constantly, right? Great! Say, if one would stretch it like an elastic band then couldn't you-"

The scientist nodded respectfully and smiled and tried to follow her sudden transition to the possibilities of organic semi-conductors with the local Greenhibicu Bec species (she named it like that herself!).

Next time one of the technicians gingerly gave her a battered Latin dictionary on paper basis.

"S' from my grandmother, she taught it back in Italy. Uh, you know the country that used to look like a boot? Well, anyway, you don't get these anymore."

As it turned out nobody had dared to outright correct her that botanical names ought to be based on an ancient language by human standard. All the same a standard she expected to fight for one day. Jade kept the volume in her treasure safe until it rotted away over the course of a month because of the humidity.

\---

This, however, was just a faceless express shuttle. Drones were unloading the cargo while some paddle footed Xant overviewed their work. She made an effort to exchange some polite small talk with them.

"LTWT,“ the Xant croaked gracefully.

"Yeah, no storms!"

Small planet hoppers like this one worked pretty independently, something one couldn't value highly enough. Skaia net had had to disband years ago, after all. Later she would transport the supplies to her house by herself and sendificate Jake's share of the shipment to his place.

Jade was just about to start a quick walk around the space shuttle to peek at the rocket launcher when the Xant called her back.

"WYD- W8! Will u look @ form 2x, plz."

"Um, sure?"

"Thx. Prob. syntax error." The Xant randomly pointed out two other passages.

"What do you mean by that? -WDYMBT?"

"...c §178 fyi."

Wow, she would never get used to their dialect! Although it could be rather expressive? Anyway, this obviously was a pretense to get her away from the back of the shuttle.

“Bec,” she called in her mind, while she eyed the Xant from the side. She had asked Bec to stay out of sight, for safety reasons. Even so he had ways to observe without attracting attention. Maybe their shuttle just had taken damage they would rather hide in front of their clients, or they had done some illegal mod. Jade huffed when she saw Bec sit on a rock formation overseeing the runaway.

“Intruder,“ he signed.  
Jade blinked when he gave a mental image of someone- a troll- making a hurried spurt for the forest edge. Wow, they were huge! Jade turned her attention to the overseer.

  
“No passenger this time?”

“N atm. 1x sentient pers,” they said with conviction, although their intonation was hard to decipher when they didn't use emoticons.

“R u in2 magazine subscriptions? Puzzle Qutly? FasciFashion?"

"No, thank you!" Jade impatiently shifted her weight.

She wanted to tackle the intruder down right then and there, but if they had the Xant on their side, then she wouldn’t be able to force them back onto the ship. Xant were notoriously tough cookies, so it was probably better to wait.

“Danger," said Bec in her mind.

\---

Jade needed the rest of the day to transport everything back to her house. Normally Bec would’ve helped, but he was busy observing the intruder. It wasn’t the first time people tried to sneak on her planet. She usually took out their vessel (not beyond repair; the parts were still useful after all) and then forced them to pay for some expensive delivery flight to hightail it. Jade considered ordering a pizza this time.

It helped that the only accessible runaway was on her island. Every other landing side was either dangerous because of its stratospheric layout or covered in rain forest so thick and lush that it aggressively grew over everything without maintenance.

Jade was in general strict about whom she let come. There had been ideas of mining uranium and settlements of Krö'Q (they settled everywhere) she had refused, a few scientists she let stay until she learned better and a demanding troll officer who wanted to vouch for one of his quadrant mates, just to name the most recent inquiries.

Jake, who lived on the other side of the small planet, had persuaded her to let an indie film crew on the planet surface once, but unfortunately most of the crew had been eaten by the fauna during the shoot (the resulting documentation drama had been welcome exemplary publicity).

Maybe it was for the best that the intruder would come to her on their own account when night fell.

Jade was currently indulging herself by sitting cross-legged under her best blood moth dispersing light while reading Rose's letter. Rose was praising the fabric quality of the birthday present she had sent to Jade. Her smile was almost tangible between the lines.

Jade held up the dress, grinned and slipped out of her clothes to put it on. The light fabric complimented her dark skin tone nicely and it wasn't too tight around her biceps either! Fantastic! Sounds of the night filtered through the window: Glow schnicades chirruping, Lusus naturae growling and howling.

Somebody knocking with calm insistence.

Jade didn’t believe for one moment that the intruder would cower in fear of the nocturnal fauna. If she knew anything about trolls and their pride, then she expected imperious behavior and a demand to stay, with free board and lodging. It was a surprise that they actually chose to knock!

"Just a moment please," said Jade absentminded.

"Hello, you must be Jade Harley,“ said the troll nonchalantly when Jade opened the door. They only blinked once at the rifle Jade had aimed at them, before turning to her, smiling.

Jade had already seen them through Bec’s vision: big hair, heavy-lidded eyes which stood wide apart. Their built was more lanky than beefy, but as troll they were naturally huge and imposing. And Jade had already seen them make their way through the forest, using their telekinetic abilities to shred woody plants to pieces and throw some surprised lusii around like chewing toys when they tried to attack her. She didn’t doubt that they would make a tough fight if it had to come so far.

"I'm Aradia, she pronoun. You don't need to worry. I'm only here to research the ruins."

Jade inhaled. The two mystic ruins had been the sole reason her grandpa and grandma had lived here for so long! Was the empire coming back to tidy up that last mystery after themself?

"I have shatter bullets loaded! And I will shoot if you try anything! It's pretty cocky of you to trespass on my planet, just to turn up here later and expect me to accept the situation, along with your flimsy excuse.”

She poked the rifle muzzle accusingly into the troll’s head zone.

“You could’ve asked me directly after you hopped off that space shuttle!"

"Sorry, I thought I… could make a better point in person. Equius- Corpsoral Zahhak has contacted you about my work?" The troll stepped a bit back.

"You mean the troll officer who wrote with percentage signs and tried to boss me around? This planet lies outside territorial cosmic space. You're not making me trust you more by associating with him."

Jade had noticed Aradia's colored eyes and lips and concluded that she was either very high or very low on their silly troll hierarchy thingy.

"I know it's a bit much to ask but if you let me explain I'll try not to waste your time. He likes to think we're potential kismesis, so I think he tried to make my inquiry more difficult by being ...unpleasant. Or he tried to do me a favor; it’s hard to tell with his demeanor." Aradia smiled. 

Jade had to admit it was a nice smile. Of course she knew about the quadrant romance system, it was hard to find any media that wasn't dominated by troll culture for better or worse.

"Well… the last time a troll set foot on here was to assassinate my grandma. You see how I might be more than a bit wary of you?”

“Yes that's understandable. However I’m an archeologist and a low blood.” Aradia shrugged. “Who incidentally partakes in civilian interplanetary travel on a Xant ship. It’s obvious that I’m not the Empire’s darling.” She frowned. “I’m not even sure if we have something like civilians.”

Jade pricked up her ears. "…Xant ships? Are you saying they're against the Empire?"

"Well, they're challenging them at least by helping those who oppose them get around. It probably shows that one shouldn't underestimate a species just because they based their export economy on magazines and cheap fashion accessory."

For a moment Jade was dumbfounded.

Then she whistled for Bec and wielded her rifle over her shoulder. He appeared behind Aradia and trotted past her through the door.

"I suppose you can come in!" It had been a while since she had to hold such a tense conservation face to face. It was all a bit much.

"Don't try anything funny though! Just- because you're pretty...," she started.

"Thank you, you look also pretty fetching in that dress," Aradia said flat-out.

"Pretty persuasive! Just because you're pretty persuasive and nice doesn't mean that it's working!" Jade smiled despite herself.

"Sorry I didn't mean to manipulate you by being nice.”

Jade let her into the grand hall. The non-existent reflection in grandpa’s glasses seemed reproachful.

 

“Yes I’ll let her into the house!!!” Jade thought without looking at him, falling into old habits.

“No I won’t aim at her the whole time, that’s rude! Are you even considering what you’re saying? That’s preposterous, my face is flushed because you want the fireplace ablaze at all times!!! I’ll be just fine with Becquerel and my dead-on shooting reflexes!”

Aradia gracefully stretched out one arm and pointed at one of the family portraits, showing a younger Jade sitting in her grandma's lap with a big book.

"Is that a picture of your ancestor?"

It was actually Jade’s favorite depiction of grandma, partly because her grandpa had drawn it (all in blue), partly because it was the only picture with only the two of them. Most of the time they had lived separately: Jake with grandma and Jade with grandpa.

On this picture grandma gave her a smile that seemed to share the same joy when Jade felt happy or seemed sanguine when Jade felt down. On this picture both Jade Harleys smiled.

"Sorry,“ Aradia said, interrupting her thoughts. "It's just that they banished pictures of her where I am from. She looks a lot like you."

"Oh, no problem! She's actually not my ancestor."

\---

Jade lead Aradia to the greenhouse. She had to move a few pot plants aside to offer Aradia a free chair.

"If you don’t mind, I would like to get to know you better! Why are you interested in the ruins?”

"I’ll do my best. To start I was always fond of archeology. I always did a lot of diggings, even if I didn’t find much. Sometimes I thought I just liked to dig holes, but the rare finds were always worth it, too. One of them was arguably my biggest.

It was an underground ruin just nearby my hive. I had time to discover some unusual properties about it. Most would probably deem it impossible, but this ruin was both out-of-place and out of time.”

Jade leaned back. “You mean something like an out-of-place-artifact?

“Yes! Just without hoaxing and dismissing the respective culture.”

“Aradia, that’s so stupid. But also kind of cool I guess.”

“Is it?” Aradia grinned back. “I guess it’s true that it was right there and now, back then and there, but its origin was certainly not. Its components are totally alien to the planet.

It looks like a temple, but it shows no sign of being used or constructed, almost as if it grew out of the ground in one piece. It’s not actually much of a ruin at all, although it’s older than troll civilization. Nevertheless it contains glyphs which can presumably be deciphered! The croak beast temples-“

“Wait! Croak beast temple? You mean a frog?”

“The same beast that is portrayed on top of your respective temple, yes.”

Jade laughed out loud. “You’re saying my temple is just like yours?”

“I don’t know that. It’s probably similar enough, but the difference is what I take interest in. We found another temple on Alternia, but with different glyphs. I believe there are temples on each planet with life forms. M.o.n. has them as well, earth had them.

Hellmurder planet’s temples just happen to be one of the closest to my own locations and one of the best researched, although your guardians shared little information about them. I assume your planet also harbors two temples?”

“Yes! There’s one at- another place,“ Jade stopped herself. She couldn’t just disclose the other temple’s whereabouts and Jake’s with it. It was wiser to hear Aradia out; even though Jade already liked her and wasn't one to ignore that instinct either.

“Don’t worry about it," Aradia said, "Only a few other friends know about my theory, my governance has no knowledge of it. We’re not supposed to be interested in the history of our people anyway, beyond what they funnel into us in school feeding.

That’s much more of a snooty high blood thing. To them history is only military history about conquest after conquest of self-adulatory leaders, written by the victors.”

She lowered her gaze confidentially.

“Really, a lot about archeology establishes time as something high and mighty but in the end it’s not anything at all. We just happen to be good at living with it. Wouldn’t it seem very silly to hold onto a history of frontiers of Us vs. Them if we found that common history across the galaxy and species?” She paused.

“Sorry I got carried away. It feels like I have still some learning to do as well.

Yes I would like to research the temples here. But I thought it wouldn’t matter if you agreed to it or not, because I believe it’s bound to happen anyway. However I don’t need to be a jerk about it, so now I would rather work with you or at least with your permission.”

"Hmmh."

After this Aradia said goodbye for the evening and repeated her promise to not enter the ruins yet. Bec would've kept her away anyway, Jade mused as she watered her plants. Bec never let Jade enter the mystic ruins either.

\---

The night on her planet was never quite dark, so she could see Aradia setting up her camp not too far away if she leaned out of the window. Oh sure, the forest casted velvety, murky shadows and the small glimmering green moon only worked as ambience light (due to the rocket's lacking properties of light reflection). However, this time of the year the bioluminescent lights of the small blooming flowers more than made up for it.

Jade sighed. She really liked this place, although she had thought about leaving before.

Jade closed the window. No matter what, she didn’t want to sit around and do nothing! She needed to inform herself. So she got busy.

She asked Jake to sendificate the drafts of the scientific papers about the ruins grandma had written shortly before her death. She assembled grandpa’s personal adventure notes as well and sat down with both heaps of paper.

For a moment Jade absent-mindedly looked over grandmas papers, just taking in the handwriting: the curve of her Ps, Cs and Ts, the dots on her Is. Jade still used more exclamation marks and swirls. She wondered now if she should really read her own research.

 

Jade had started to suspect that she would somehow travel back in time and become her own guardian pretty early on. Even grandpa wouldn’t name an identical clone after himself without adding a Junior, after all. A letter from herself on her 18th birthday had confirmed as much, or as little as the fact that Grandma had been a time traveler.

Jade will would have built up skaia net to defy the Empire’s annihilation of humanity and help their flight/diaspora across the universe with bold ideas and futuristic technology. Later in life she’ll have returned to this planet to raise her own baby brother Jake and research the ruins; and then, one night, die at the hands of the Condesce herself.

But wasn’t Jade going ahead of herself if she looked into her own future past research?

Or was she supposed to do just that?

The future in ten years would most certainly take place without her, or so she had thought. Her friends would live in it without her and she would live in the past without them, except for Jake and probably Becquerel.

But now this weird girl had turned up with her talk about temples originating outside of space-time and a revolution of people and history. And well. She wanted to see what would happen with that! She really did! Then again it was entirely possible that investigating the temples would just close the loop and let her discover the time travel that would make going back necessary.

Jade patted Becquerel’s big angular head. Time was a tiresome concept to consider sometimes, especially grammar wise. She was getting a head ache already! But maybe she didn’t have to consider it alone.

“What do you think, Bec?”

Bec looked up to her with his non-existent eyes. His expression said: I’m a dog. And what a good dog he was, but that wasn’t what Jade was going for.

“You said Aradia is dangerous, remember?”

Bec signified that he had meant the danger sown in the decision that came with her. Although she could be dangerous by herself anyway, depending on whom she happened to.

Bec added that she smelled like the dust of dead things and cherries, which wasn’t a bad smell according to him.

“Do you think we should explore the ruins? Will you let me?”

Bec whimpered loudly and wagged his tail a bit. Then he sat up, put his paw on her knee and gave an earnest >arf

He couldn’t foresee what would happen. She was a big girl and she could be trusted with the decision.

“Awww!“ Jade hugged him and buried her face into his fur, sniffing, not sure if she had to surpress the tears or laugh out loud any moment now.

\---

She picked up the papers and rushed downstairs. It was a bit embarrassing that she made a detour to check herself in the mirror before leaving the house, but Jade decided it was only good manners to look fetching as host.

She could see Aradia in the distance between the red variant of glowing Abelmoschus Bec. Jade's heart seemed to race ahead. How did the saying go again?

Memores act somethingprudent futuri…?

Oh, it didn’t matter, she knew the meaning anyway!


End file.
